Arkansas suffered two more legal setbacks Wednesday in its bid to carry out multiple executions this month when the state Supreme Court spared one prisoner and a judge later ruled that the state can't use one of its drugs in any of its executions.

The state originally set eight executions to occur over an 11-day period in April. But Arkansas has encountered multiple legal roadblocks, and the latest ruling from Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray over the drug vecuronium bromide upends the entire schedule.

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"Irreparable harm will result. Harm that could not be addressed by (monetary) damages," Gray said in a ruling from the bench, siding with the medical supply company McKesson Corp., which sued to stop Arkansas from using its drug to kill condemned inmates.

Moments earlier, the Arkansas Supreme Court had granted a stay of execution to inmate Stacey Johnson, who had been set to die Thursday. Johnson's attorneys requested additional DNA testing on evidence that they say could prove his innocence in the 1993 rape and killing of Carol Heath. The Innocence Project filed the appeal along with Johnson's attorney.

Heath's daughter Ashley told a parole board in 2015 that she had forgiven Johnson and asked the panel to spare his life, but Heath's son Jonathan Palmer told the board he completely disagreed.

"We've established that modern DNA testing methods can prove Mr. Johnson's innocence, and Arkansas law clearly established that Mr. Johnson is entitled to that testing," said Karen Thompson, a staff attorney with the Innocence Project, on Tuesday after the appeal was filed. "It's just common sense that before the government sends a man to his death, we should use the best scientific methods to make sure we have convicted the right person."

In its 4-3 ruling, the state's highest court followed the same split it did on Monday, when it halted two other executions involving different inmates.

"Today, our court gives uncertainty to any case ever truly being final in the Arkansas Supreme Court," Justice Rhonda Wood wrote in a dissenting opinion.

A spokesman for Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said the state is reviewing its options regarding Johnson's case. The state can ask the Arkansas Supreme Court to reconsider its decision or appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which on Monday opted not to vacate a separate stay involving inmate Don Davis.

In the drug case, a state prison official testified that he deliberately ordered the drug last year in a way that there wouldn't be a paper trail, relying on phone calls and text messages. Arkansas Department of Correction Deputy Director Rory Griffin said he didn't keep records of the texts, but McKesson salesman Tim Jenkins did. In text messages from Jenkins' phone, which came up at Wednesday's court hearing, there is no mention that the drug would be used in executions.

The other inmate, Ledell Lee, was sentenced to death for the beating and strangling death of Debra Reese in Pulaski County in 1991.

Lee was arrested less than an hour after the slaying, after prosecutors say he spent some of the $300 he had stolen from her.

Ledell Lee, argued unsuccessfully Tuesday in a Little Rock courtroom that he be given a chance to test blood and hair evidence that could prove he didn't beat 26-year-old Debra Reese to death during a 1993 robbery in Jacksonville. An appeal is possible.

In addition to Lee's innocence claim, his lawyers want to know whether their client has an intellectual disability that wasn't properly investigated during his trials.

"Mr. Lee has never had the opportunity to have his case truly investigated, despite serious questions about guilt, and his intellectual disability," Lee's attorney, Cassandra Stubbs, said.

Lee had been released on parole 10 weeks before her death after serving time for burglary and theft. DNA evidence linked Lee to other attacks, including the abduction of Christine Lewis, 22. Lewis was abducted five days before being found beaten, raped and strangled. A trial in that death ended with a hung jury, and prosecutors dropped the case after the state Supreme Court upheld Lee's death sentence for Reese's murder.

Lee's attorneys asked for clemency from Gov. Hutchinson in March. The Parole Board recommended against granting him clemency.

(Portions of this article are copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)